(translation of a Greek press release by the FFII, Hellug, and digitalrights.gr)

Athens, 14 January 2008. Serious problems have been spotted in the the agreement between the government and Microsoft, which was submitted to the Parliament on Thursday as a law proposal. Academics and professionals continue to examine the agreement, discovering new weaknesses.

The law proposal effectively consists of only one sentence: the agreement that was signed in February 2006 between the Minister of Economy Mr Alogoskoufis and the chairman of Microsoft Bill Gates acquires the power of law.

Legality

The first problem is the existence of the law proposal itself. "If the agreement was legal, then there would be no need for a law proposal that 'legalises' it," explains Antonis Christofides, representative of FFII. "If a law says that it is permitted to erect a specific building, the only explanation is that the building would be otherwise illegal."

Transparency

The second problem is that many related documents are absent. The agreement with Microsoft, which is reproduced in the text of the law proposal, refers to another ten agreements which are not attached and have not been published. For example, while it is mentioned that licenses for at least 70 thousand computers will be purchased, neither the exact number, nor the exact software, nor the price are mentioned; instead, there is reference to another agreement. Therefore, the MPs are effectively requested to sign a blank check to Microsoft.

Mr Alogoskoufis had said to the Parliament on 22 June 2007 that the agreement had been sent to the European Union for approval, "so that we are certain that it is completely compatible with the rules of the European Union." Since then he has mentioned nothing else, and he has not presented any document about where the agreement was submitted and what was the result.

Finally, most dates provided by the agreement are in the past. For example, the agreement provides for the purchase of 30 thousand licenses until 31 December 2006. There is no information about what has happened in the meantime.

Inaccuracies

The third problem is that the introductory rationale of the law proposal has serious inaccuracies. It mentions that the agreement with Microsoft has economic benefits. However, the cost of the licenses provided for in the agreement is estimated in between 9 and 36 million euros (it cannot be calculated exactly because the details are specified in a separate unknown agreement) until 2009, plus the cost of later upgrades. In contrast, international companies like Canonical and RedHat offer licenses for their software at no cost, with unlimited and perpetual upgrade rights. The introductory rational therefore presents an unneeded expense of tens of millions of euros as an economic benefit.

The introductory rationale also mentions that the licenses will have up to 20% price reduction. However, nothing like this follows from the text of the agreement.

Conclusions and comments

The essential provision of the agreement is the purchase of at least 70 thousand Microsoft licenses. The heavily advertised Microsoft Innovation Centre and the rest of the agreement are details for which nothing specific is mentioned, but only the signing of separate agreements. "All the 'innovation' boils down to some Microsoft licenses," comments Christos Loverdos, private IT consultant.

There are alternative solutions that have been proposed by the manifesto of digitalrights.gr, a citizen movement. Mr Nikos Kossifidis explains: "In contrast to the 'common workgroup' of Microsoft and the government, which is one of the provisions of the agreement, we propose a long term inter-party policy for the development of a local software industry based on free software, which will serve national needs and secure sustainable IT infrastructure for the state, with a function that is independent of the interests of specific companies."

Dr Diomidis Spinellis, Associate Professor of Administration Support Technologies in the Athens University of Economy and Business, concludes: "Although there are many options available in information technology, the law proposal, on the long term, binds the country to the preferential treatment and the adoption of Microsoft technologies. The decisions of many European Union states on the adoption of open standards and open source software in public administration are ignored. These alternative options would have lower cost and would enhance the technological development and independence of Greek enterprises and Greece in general."